The actor who played Mr Heckles in Friends has spoken out about allegedly being ‘mistreated’ when the cast of the show reunited in 2021.
If you’re a fan of Friends, then you will be all too familiar with Mr Heckles; the annoying downstairs neighbour who regularly made up stories about having cats or birds, much to the chagrin of the pals living upstairs.
Mr Heckles had a habit of banging on the ceiling to try and tell the people above to keep it down, but that all came to an end one day after he was rolled out of his apartment in a body bag.
Mr Heckles lived below Monica and Rachel (Warner Bros)
That was in 1995, when the episode ‘The One Where Heckles Dies‘ first aired on TV, but the actor who brought Mr Heckles to life is still very much alive and kicking – and he’s now spoken out about his experience on the show and its 2021 reunion.
Larry Hankin is the man who portrayed Heckles over the course of five episodes on Friends, and when Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox and Matt LeBlanc got back together in 2021, Hankin was called in to make an appearance.
However, Hankin has claimed he wasn’t treated very well during the reunion, according to an article published by Sportskeeda.
Mr Heckles appeared in five episodes of Friends (Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images)
During a virtual interview, Hankin claimed: “They wouldn’t let me talk to anybody. And they sent me to a dressing room upstairs and said, ‘Go there and wait [until] we ask you to come down and be there on the show’.”
“So I am really angry at the people who produced the Friends reunion,” Hankin added.
Hankin opened up further about his experience on Friends during an interview with Cracked last year.
He explained: “Overall, I did five episodes of Friends, and Mr. Heckles became very famous. Here’s the thing, though: On your sixth show, you became a recurring character, which meant a big bump in pay.”
While this might be good news for many actors, Hankin soon learned a pay bump wouldn’t be in his future.
Mr Heckles died in the show (Warner Bros)
He recalled: “I got a call from my agent saying, ‘I have good news and bad news. First, Friends called for your fifth appearance…’ In that moment, I thought, ‘I have a house’.
“Then he said, ‘You have a heart attack and die’.
“Going into that shoot, I had a chip on my shoulder. I was going to let the producers know that I wasn’t happy.”
Hankin described shouting at the producers over being killed off, but he ‘snapped out’ of his anger when a female producer quietly asked: “Larry, can we talk about this a little later?”
Although Hankin didn’t get the ending he might have wanted on Friends, he later went on to appear in other big titles including such as Breaking Bad.
UNILAD has contacted a representative at HBO for comment.
